


Left All the Lights Burning (But Nobody's Home)

by DrowningByDegrees



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And they're both allergic to just saying what they mean, Blood and Injury, Caretaking, Competent Jaskier | Dandelion, Concussions, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Happy Ending, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, In their defense one is delirious and one is dumb, M/M, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Whumptober 2020, almost, sort of love confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningByDegrees/pseuds/DrowningByDegrees
Summary: Geralt is quiet, but he’s always quiet, so that really doesn’t mean much. When he can’t hear the witcher, Jaskier squints at the dark room, wishing his friend didn’t absolutely insist on wearing blackallthe time. “I don’t suppose you can do that magicky thing you do and break us out of here?”No answer comes.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 36
Kudos: 491
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Left All the Lights Burning (But Nobody's Home)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober prompt 26. If you thought the head trauma was bad (Migraine, concussion, blindness)

In retrospect, they had had better days. They’d been all but run out of town, which, they were killing a monster for these ungrateful jerks, so rude. Said ungrateful jerks had also greatly understated the monster problem so that Geralt would agree to save the town they wouldn’t even let him sleep in for less money, so extra rude. And now, the monsters are dead, but the building that had served as a nest has pretty much come down around Geralt’s and Jaskier’s ears, which _probably_ isn’t the villagers fault, but they’re summarily awful so the bard opts to blame them anyway.

Jaskier coughs as the dust and debris settle, but it still feels like he tried to breathe in a sandstorm. Blindly, he shakes the rubble from his hair with his hand, staring out into the darkness. There’s only the weakest light shining in from off to his right promising that a world continues to exist beyond their unexpected prison. 

A prison that Jaskier hopes Geralt is investigating to find them a way out of. Geralt is quiet, but he’s always quiet, so that really doesn’t mean much. When he can’t hear the witcher, Jaskier squints at the dark room, wishing his friend didn’t absolutely insist on wearing black _all_ the time. “I don’t suppose you can do that magicky thing you do and break us out of here?”

No answer comes. 

“Geralt? You’re not on the other side of all these rocks are you? I _really_ don’t fancy being stuck here alone,” Jaskier calls a little louder. He feels his way to where the crumbled stone blocked off the exit and finds it every bit as impassable as he feared. Jaskier thinks to try and free himself, but the first rock he grabs comes loose and the whole pile rumbles, sending the bard scrambling backward, tripping over something and landing in a heap on the floor. Alright, bad idea then.

He had initially assumed the something he tripped over was more rocks, except that it makes a wretched little whimpering sound that rocks are very definitely not capable of. _Fuck_.

Hampered by the fact that he can’t see, Jaskier feels his way across the floor until he finds the hard leather protecting Geralt’s torso. Geralt isn’t moving and he can’t _see_ , so Jaskier curses under his breath as he maps his way up to the witcher’s face. “C’mon Geralt. Wake up. This is _really_ not the time.”

A hand held in front of Geralt’s face confirms that at least he’s still breathing, but that’s no real comfort when he’s still so still and quiet. It’s as much reassurance as Jaskier thinks he’s going to get though, so he continues. Maybe if he could get Geralt to sit up…

Jaskier never gets that far. Blindly, he slides a hand behind Geralt’s head and his heart nearly stops in his chest. Geralt’s hair is matted with something warm and sort of viscous, and when Jaskier rubs his fingers together, they’re wet. The touch that just got what Jaskier assumes is blood on his hands is also the thing that finally pulls a sound from Geralt. That makes it even worse because it’s an agonized moan that Jaskier is pretty sure is going to haunt him every day for the rest of his life. 

“Okay, don’t panic Jask. You can fix this,” he mumbles under his breath. If he just had some light. Jaskier glares at the little hole where the sun is still shining in like the wall did this just to harm him personally. If the window is mostly blocked, there have to be a lot of stones in the way, and no telling if he could lift them.

Except maybe he doesn’t have to. Frantically, Jaskier feels around for Geralt’s sword, breathing out a sigh of relief when he finally wraps his fingers around the hilt. If luck is on his side, maybe he can get enough leverage to knock something free. 

“How do you use this thing?” Jaskier grumbles once he’s got it, supporting the weight of the sword against his shoulder. It’s not that it’s all that heavy to stand there and hold, but even the idea of swinging it around is exhausting. On the upside, it seems sturdy enough to pry a few rocks loose, and if it isn’t… well, a sword is replaceable. Geralt is decidedly less so. 

Every second feels too long, like he’s moving in slow motion. Jaskier shuffles across the open space as briskly as he dares, shoves the sword into the first thing that feels like a gap in the rocks and shifts his weight downward against the hilt. There’s nothing. The rock is too heavy or he is too weak, or the sword isn’t stiff enough, or…

Jaskier shakes his head, refusing to give up like that. He yanks the sword free and tries again, a little off to one side. This time, the sword slips further in with the grating sound of stone on steel. Once again, he throws all his weight into pushing the sword down like a lever. There’s a creak, an echoing sort of groan as It moves a little and then all at once. Jaskier barely has time to jump out of the way as a sizable rock skids from its resting place along with a shower of pebbles. 

It’s not really a big enough gap to get out, but it does let the light in quite a bit more. The room is dim and dusty, but it brings the periphery into focus, not that Jaskier cares a whit about that. He nearly stumbles over the rocks scattered across the floor in his hurry to get back to Geralt. 

“Oh, no no no.” Jaskier’s breath catches in his throat when his gaze settles on the witcher. He has seen Geralt muddle through all manner of injury, has patched up a fair few of them himself. He’s stitched up angry, uneven gashes and set fractured bones, but none of those things prepares him for the way Geralt looks now. Blood spreads around the witcher’s head like some sort of macabre halo staining Geralt’s hair a disturbing shade of crimson and soaking into the dust and rock around him. 

It’s not really a relief to find Geralt’s potions weren’t lost when the building came down around them. It’s more like a handful of sandbags in the face of a hurricane. He’s not a complete stranger to them though, and a rather distraught effort at rifling through the witcher’s bag turns up one Jaskier recognizes. It’s an orangey red, almost sparkling, and he’s seen it work before on things that should have killed Geralt. He’s got it in hand when he realizes he needs to back up a step. It can’t mend the witcher if he bleeds out first. 

There are no bandages, because of course there aren’t. Jaskier shrugs out of his doublet. It’s not soft at all, so the chemise goes too, and that he can work with. Carefully as he can, Jaskier winds the cloth around Geralt’s head, tying it in place and hoping to whatever deity might be listening that it’s enough.

The potion comes next, and that’s somehow much worse. Geralt doesn’t stir when Jaskier brings the bottle to his lips. The only thing Jaskier can think to do is drip it in a little at a time, so agonizingly slowly that he worries it’ll be too late before he’s even finished. Afterwards, he stares at Geralt’s unnaturally still form, waiting to make sure he doesn’t choke on the stuff somehow. 

Are you supposed to leave people where they are or something else entirely? Jaskier doesn’t have the foggiest idea, but he can’t bear the idea of leaving Geralt on the hard ground. Shivering in the chilly air, Jaskier ignores the blood seeping into his trousers and sits so that he can rest Geralt’s head in his lap. He won’t panic over the stain spreading too quickly across his chemise. He won’t. “You're not dying here. You don't get to leave me behind. Not like this.” 

All that’s left to do is wait.

***

Geralt can’t remember ever opening his eyes to this before, the world having slid so violently out of focus. There’s a weight, or maybe it’s him that’s heavy. Even curling his fingers a monumental effort. 

“Wh-” It’s all he manages before words fail him, and suddenly there is a hand squeezing his shoulder. 

“Oh thank fuck,” someone says. Jaskier? Geralt thinks it’s probably Jaskier. It usually is. “How are you feeling?” Did something happen that suddenly granted him sleeping in Jaskier’s lap privileges? He doesn’t think so. That feels important in a way he can’t imagine being ambushed by, tied to a conversation he keeps not having, but here they are, his head very definitely in Jaskier’s lap. Only Jaskier looks horribly unhappy, so… so… 

Jaskier had been asking him something. “What?”

“How’s your head? There was a lot of blood and I didn’t know if the potion would be enough, and…” Jaskier’s still talking. Geralt is distantly aware of this, but the words won’t stick. 

“What happened?” he says, or hopes he does. His mouth feels as disjointed as the rest of him and it’s disconcertingly difficult to tell. 

“The building came down on us. Don’t you remember?” 

“Obviously not,” Geralt bites out. Wait. The building came down and as that sinks in, there’s a sharp pang of fear, but not for himself. He’ll be fine. He’s always fine. But Jaskier is human and sometimes overwhelmingly fragile. Geralt's head is swimming and he's almost afraid to ask. “Are you alright?”

“Me? I’m fine.” There’s more, but the rest won’t stay put. That’s the important bit anyway. Jaskier is okay. The swell of fear dissipates like a puff of smoke as quickly as it had sprung up. The building is a problem, but he can figure that out. Somehow. It’ll come to him eventually. To Jaskier’s credit, he does seem fine, if oddly clothed. Rather not clothed, actually. “Where is your shirt?” 

“Ah yeah, that.” Jaskier’s knuckles brush gently across Geralt’s temple. Dizzily, Geralt leans into it before it occurs to him maybe he shouldn't. “You were bleeding a lot. It was all I had to work with.”

“Hmm.” There’s an itchy sort of feeling at the back of his mind suggesting he’s _supposed_ to be alarmed by that, but the response itself never comes. Not the way it did for Jaskier. Which, there was a reason he was worried about Jaskier, he’s pretty sure. There might be a reason he’s lying here too, what whatever it is, it’s lost to him now. They’re somewhere dark and dusty, and they can’t stay here forever, so without much thought, Geralt rolls over, trying to get up. It’s a mistake. 

That the room is spinning is the least terrible thing out of all the things that come of his attempt to get up. The shift in equilibrium feels like having nails driven into his skull from every angle, sharp and impossible to tune out. There’s a high, keening sound Geralt only belatedly realizes is him. 

“Geralt. Fuck. Hang on.” There’s nothing to hang onto though, and Geralt all but collapses down to his forearms. For a second he’s very, very certain he’s going to retch, but the immediacy of the sensation passes, leaving him deeply nauseous instead.

Jaskier’s hand smooths up and down his arm in the places where hard leather doesn’t block out sensation. In another place he might call the touch affectionate, but what daydream could he be in where that’s true? “Where are we?”

“We just talked about this. We're in a building that collapsed.” Something has crept into the edges of Jaskier’s voice, fretful and shadowed. Geralt decides he doesn’t like it. He’d like to soothe it away, but does not know how. 

“‘M fine,” he tries because Jaskier seems worried about him, but even in his own ears the words blur together. Geralt tries to lift his head enough to look at Jaskier and prove his point, but the awful needlepoint pressure only presses more deeply. The witcher drops his head, forehead resting against what he thinks might be Jaskier’s knee. 

“You’re not fine, you dolt. I don't want to mess it up, but I don't know how to fix this one. Are you supposed to sleep it off? Should I make sure you _don’t_ sleep?” Jaskier is saying things still, Geralt is distantly aware, but the words all drift like dandelion seeds. There’s only this thread of terror that Geralt cannot stomach hearing. 

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” he mumbles, blindly reaching to lay his hand over Jaskier’s. He’s not dead and Jaskier is well enough to talk, so it can’t be that bad, can it? “Tell me what happened.” 

“...Geralt?” Jaskier’s thumb is brushing against the back of Geralt’s neck. It’s sort of lovely in that it's one pleasant thing when everything else is awful. “What do you remember?”

That’s a trick question if Geralt ever heard one. His memory is fine. He can’t think of any reason it wouldn’t be. Refusing to fall for it, Geralt aims to distract instead. “That feels nice.”

“Well, now I _know_ you’re unwell. The Geralt I know barely tolerates my being around for more than a few weeks at a time, and would _never_ own up to liking something I was doing. 

Does Jaskier really think that? Maybe. Geralt can’t seem to hang onto where that line of reasoning was going, but Jaskier was talking and _wrong_. He needs to know he's wrong. “That’s not true. I miss you when you’re gone.”

“Ooooookay. That’s very sweet, but I think you’ll remember that’s not true when you’re better." It sounds sad, but Jaskier still has a hand on him, warm and welcome.

He’s staring very closely at a floor that was probably pretty once, but it’s cracked now. It’s a weird place to be, even for him, so Geralt tries to get up. Sort of. More precisely, he lifts his head an inch or two. It’s as far as he gets before his head feels like it’s splitting and he thinks he might be sick. 

”Okay, that’s enough of that. You are, in fact, the worst patient. I would like to not be stuck here, and I imagine you would like to not be stuck here, so just let me _help_.” Stuck? Geralt doesn’t know where they’re stuck, but he knows there’s some reason he shouldn’t ask. Nodding is probably a terrible idea, so the witcher hums an agreement and listens to Jaskier sweep the worst of the debris from the floor next to them. 

There are hands on him next, guiding him somewhere else with painstaking care. Geralt lets himself be moved. He ends up on his side before it feels very abruptly like Roach is stepping on his skull. It’s all he can do to bite off a low whimper. 

“Alright, hey. Just get some rest. That swallow has to work eventually, right?” Jaskier doesn’t sound certain, but there's something soft under Geralt’s cheek and there’s a gentle hand cradling the side of his neck, a thumb carefully sweeping across his temple. If they weren’t lost, Geralt would call the gesture affectionate, but nothing makes any sense here. Are they lost?

Geralt thinks about the worried quiver in Jaskier’s voice. He'd fix it if he just knew how. It's quiet here, and Jaskier doesn't belong by himself in the quiet. “I don’t want to leave you alone.” 

“You’re not.” There’s a change in pressure around his skull, something falling away, but it doesn’t hurt, and it comes with Jaskier’s fingers sliding through his hair. “Your head is looking better.”

That’s good, he thinks. Maybe it means the awful needling feeling will go away. Maybe it means this other ache, the one sprawling out behind his ribcage, will go away too. It means something, Geralt knows, but he can’t quite piece it together and his mouth runs away without the rest of him. “I don’t think I want to be alone.” 

“You’re not. I’m right here.” Jaskier’s short nails scritch tenderly at the base of Geralt’s skull, a welcome counterpoint to everything else. “You’re not alone.”

***

 _I don’t think I want to be alone_. It’s a revelation if it means anything. Jaskier knows, of course, that the rambling of a witcher who couldn’t even remember how they got there for more than thirty seconds at a time might not mean anything at all. But if there’s nothing to it, at least Jaskier can know that there for a moment in time, he could be exactly what Geralt needed. For now, Geralt’s face is pressed into Jaskier’s thigh, his breathing the only sound in this dim place. 

An hour in, Jaskier starts to wonder if it wasn’t the other way around. Maybe he was supposed to keep Geralt from sleeping. Two hours in, he worries that Geralt might wake up in just as bad of shape as before, that he’ll have failed them both. Three hours in, sitting so still has gotten to be agonizing as much as he’d like to stay.

He’s just about to try and see how carefully he can move out from under Geralt when the witcher stirs. There’s a low groan and one eerie golden eye slowly blinking open. 

“Careful.” Jaskier carefully brushes his thumb along Geralt’s temple, trying to coax the witcher into staying put, even if it means his own continued discomfort. 

“Fuck. That hurts,” Geralt grumbles, holding his hand over the upper half of his face, and some of Jaskier’s unease settles. The words are perfectly clear this time. 

“Shockingly, Falling rocks will do that.” He should let go, Jaskier thinks, but he carefully threads his fingers through Geralt’s hair and the witcher stays like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. It's probably just that Geralt needs a little time to reorient himself, but for a moment, Jaskier lets himself believe it’s true. 

Bit by bit, Geralt seems to recover. When he finally pushes himself to sit up, there’s a pained wince, but the witcher’s eyes remain focused. That’s… good. That’s probably good. Except if it’s not. “Should you be doing that?”

“I’m fine,” Geralt replies gruffly instead of bothering to answer the question. 

It’s considerably more normal than their last conversation, so that’s something. “Actually fine or ‘I can’t wrap my head around the fact that someone might care what happens to me’ fine?”

Geralt ignores the question entirely, his gaze flicking over their surroundings before settling on Jaskier. “You were afraid.”

It's not a question, and Geralt is looking at him like a puzzle to solve. It would just figure, the one time the man is actually listening to him. It seems weird that Geralt couldn't keep ahold of where they even were, but that Jaskier being afraid for him would stick even now. Then again, Jaskier doesn't know anything about head injuries. Maybe that's just how it goes.

“Damn right I was. I thought you were dying and I was going to be trapped down here with your… your corpse or something. Then you woke up making _no_ sense, and I don’t know what to do with a head injury, which it turns out is an awfully stressful thing to guess about. I wasn't even sure I'd done enough to fix it until, what, five minutes ago?” It's a lot, even for him, the words tripping over each other in their need to escape. Jaskier leans on theatrics because it’s all the armor he has. Anything else might give away how his heart broke with every attempt Geralt made to speak the last time around. 

“Hmm.” Geralt pinches the bridge of his nose and says nothing more. Typical. 

Jaskier wants to be angry, but the feeling floats away as soon as he really looks at Geralt. There are dark, angry smudges under his eyes, and Geralt is so pale, more than usual even. He appears every bit the part of someone who was recently on death’s door and Jaskier just can’t hang onto any real bitterness. “How’re you feeling?”

Geralt gives him a sour look, the kind he gets when he thinks Jaskier is asking a dumb question. Much to Jaskier’s surprise, he does answer eventually. “Terrible… but not dying.” 

“Sooooo, any thoughts on how we get out of here?” It’s abrupt, but Jaskier really can’t stomach thinking the state Geralt was in, and escape is the next most pressing thing. The sooner they steer away from what happened, the less likely he is to say something foolish.

There’s that look a second time, and this time Geralt doesn’t deign to answer. Which is okay really. They’ve been stuck here this long. A little longer probably won’t hurt anything. 

“I was. Dying, I mean,” Geralt says quietly, startling Jaskier from his thoughts. The bard follows Geralt’s gaze to where there is still quite a lot of blood splattered across the floor. It's dry, but it stains the alabaster flooring and pale, crumbled stone.

“Oh, that. Well, see I-” Jaskier stumbles because he doesn't know what Geralt wants, and having nearly lost the witcher in this remnant of a room has left him raw and tender in places. It's almost a relief when Geralt’s hand slaps unceremoniously over Jaskier’s mouth, stifling any further reply, but not hard enough to hurt. When Jaskier looks at him in surprise, he’d swear there was something like affection in Geralt’s exasperated expression. It's probably just a trick of the light.

“Stop. Talking. You did _well_. I'm still here, aren't I?” With a grimace, Geralt pulls his hand from Jaskier’s mouth and wobbles to his feet. It’s an unsteady motion, and Jaskier isn’t sure it’s really wise this soon after nearly having his brains bashed in. Geralt seems to manage though, and holds out a hand to Jaskier like _he’s_ the one who needs support.

“In this life, some days not dead is the best you can hope for." Jaskier can’t help but take Geralt’s hand, letting the witcher yank him to his feet. Jaskier thinks he catches a smile, but Geralt turns away too quickly to be sure. What he is sure of is that he's on his feet and Geralt's hand is still holding onto his. "Not dead... and not alone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi! You can find me [on Tumblr](https://drowningbydegrees.tumblr.com/) or [ this one](https://drowningbydegrees-fanworks.tumblr.com/) if you're only interested in fanworks.  
> Sometimes, I also exist on [Twitter.](https://twitter.com/DrownByDegrees)  
> 


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